What started as a 5-star experience has sadly become a 1-star (zero star?) experience and a recommendation to not do business with this company. It has to do with communication and honesty and follow-up. We had a great experience with Gary's crew when fixing some plumbing issues at a rental property we invested in about a year and 1/2 ago. They were timely, they did solid work, the price was reasonable, and the quote, invoicing and payment process was easy.
Cut to 3 months later and we had gone out of town for work for 5 months. Our adult daughter was house sitting. The temperature dial on our shower broke and we told her to call Gary. He sent someone out who wanted to take the part away to do some research, but we had already done the research and knew that the thermostat needed to be replaced. It would've been (was, ultimately by another plumber) about a 1-hour job.
Even though our daughter asked the plumber on-site to not go do any research, he took off and started making calls and visits to figure out how to do what we'd already said needed to be done. We never heard back, so we had another plumber come and do the job... that was until we received a bill for $170 for the plumber's time to do research we didn't need performed.
Originally the bill was coming to our daughter's boyfriend (who signed for the quote visit), and when the first one arrived, I called long-distance to talk to them to explain the bill amount was bogus and we'd pay for the house-call. I left 2 messages and never got a reply. When we got back, I got another bill, finally in my name, and called them twice before speaking to a gal in their office and re-explained what had happened. She said she would have Gary call me back to discuss and we left it at that. He never called back... I don't know why, I was nothing but courteous and professional, and felt it was totally fair to pay for the house-call. We planned on doing years of business with this man and his company.
Now it's months later and I've had to leave town again to care for an elderly family member out of state, and now my daughter sends me a picture of a bill... the bill that I never got the call back on has been turned over to a collection agency. Unbelievable! No calls back and instead of facing me and discussing what happened, he just writes off our family and our business and sends the bill to collections.
I run my own small business, and I would never do this to a customer, so I'm sad to be writing this review. This guy is willing to lose lifetime customers - not only me, but my family and friends born, raised and still living in Joplin over what amounts to $110. It's petty, incredibly rude, and bad business. I don't recommend hiring Gary McKinney plumbing even though their work is solid, because their backbone is not. read more
